


Kneel, to Condition All the Feelings that You Feel

by oppressa



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Genre: Betrayal, But she loves Kurt so much, Churches, Confession, Gen, Mistaken Identity, Raven is manipulative as shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oppressa/pseuds/oppressa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt's afraid of the side of him that's like Raven and goes to confess his darker impulses. Only she's the one that ends up hearing his confession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author has a Catholic background but has not been to church, let alone confession, in many many years (sorry mam) and is not at all sure she's done this right.
> 
> I guess this is a continuation of a series I did because it references what happened in that a bit but I kind of intended this one as a two-shot stand alone, I hope it works that way.

It hasn't been easy to track where Kurt goes, but when she finds out she thinks it probably should have been obvious. Raven stands in the nave of the old church, eyeing his tail spiralling from the confession box. There are no voices from inside. If she wanted an opportunity to find out how he really feels this is it. She climbs in the other side, without bothering to change her form, as he can't see her. And if they're interrupted, well, she can deal with a fucking _priest._

“I'm here, my child.” She approximates the kindly voice of a middle aged man and waits for him to begin.

“Father.” He sits well back, hides even from the light inside the box. “Forgive me, for I have sinned. It has been nearly six months since my last confession.”

Before she came upon him in Berlin, then. Before he was caught and shut up in that other box.

Now it occurs to her she has no idea of how this is supposed to go. _That fool isn't your father_. “In which ways have you sinned, my son?”

“Well, first I have to tell you about my mother. She's been very good to me, but she's done some bad things. She has even...killed people, because of what she believes in.”

Wow, Kurt.

“Are you here to confess your mother's sins, or your own?” She asks as gently as she can, whilst thinking, _I teleported into the kitchen in the dead of night on a cupcake raid. I spied on Scott and Jean kissing and didn't let them know I was there._

“No, I don't judge her. I judge myself because despite all those things, I want to be like her.”

Raven waits.

“And there's more of her in me than she knows, like say if somebody threatened my friends, I would want --”

“What would you want?” She prompts, remembering at the last second not to say his name.

“I feel like I would want to kill that person. And like I would enjoy doing it, using my mut– um, just that I would feel like it was right. But it isn't ever right to kill somebody, I know that. I always knew, before my mother came into my life...”

“So you want to be forgiven for feeling something you haven't even felt? For doing something you haven't even done?”

“Yes, it's an immoral thought and I don't wish to have those.”

Raven thinks about what she'd like to say to him as herself, and what he needs to hear right now. She clears her throat, hoping she gets it right.

“I'm sure that if you've come here in all honesty, then God forgives you. Maybe say -- four Hail Mary's, so he knows you're sorry.”

He moves in the other booth, then breathes out. Is that it? Is it over? No.

“There was something else I wanted to ask of you. I was wondering if I could stay here, for a little while.”

 _Until your monster of a mother starts wondering where you are, like any mother would, you little shit_?

“You may stay as long as you like.” She clears her throat again, “My son.”

Her son is a stripling she could crush in one second, and sometimes she wants to, or just shake some sense into him most severely, really.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, the church is empty again, apart from her and Kurt. She can hear something up in the rafters, that sounds like someone trying not to break down.

“Are you hiding from me in here?” She pitches her voice loud, although it's more than possible he's seen her come in. “Really?”

No reply, apart from more muffled sobs.

She sighs. “Why are you crying this time?”

There's movement, and she trains her eyes on it, although he could be elsewhere in no time at all.

“The priest here, he said that I could stay, and then when he saw me this morning he called me a demon, he threw a chalice at me, he thought I was --”

He hiccups and doesn't finish, but she knows what. The devil himself.

“Then why don't you just come home? A while ago you were chastising me for leaving.”

“Du bist die _erwachsene_.” She can't really see him still but she knows he's pouting. “Sometimes you're not like my mother at all.”

She shrugs. “Disown me.”

“No!” He swings his legs out from his hiding place – she'd thought that was where he was – and materialises in front of her, eyes a duller red, hair tousled. He even slept in this creepy place over night. “You don't mean that!”

“Oh no? You know what I did? When you were _confessing_ , to your priest yesterday, that wasn't him. It was me.”

Shock blooms painfully across his face. He whines. “How could you do something like that – die Beichte, es ist Heilig, _geheim_.”

“I tried to tell you, Kurt. I'm no hero. But you knew that by now, right?”

He turns his back on her, slides into one of the pews, bows his head on his clasped hands and closes his eyes, muttering to himself. The rosary someone must have given him at some point moving through his fingers.

Raven sits in the row behind, clenching her own hands together and leaning forward.

“So, what in particular did you find out about me that you don't like?”

He pauses, shrugs her off. “You were part of Magneto's brotherhood. A terrorist. You did terrible things --”

“Yes. Only it's not me you're afraid of, is it?”

He sniffs, commences praying again.

“Kurt. Talk to me. You should be able to talk to _me_ , not some flatscan who doesn't even know you.”

“Please just leave me alone.”

She stands up, and then seizes his shoulder, pushes him along his bench.

“Bitte nur --”

“ _Nein_.” She snarls, alongside him. “You listen to me. I don't know where you got all this guilt from, but you don't need to take my sins on yourself, all right? They're mine, I've paid for them in my own way. One such penance, or whatever you want to call it, was not knowing you until you were grown, okay? And these instincts that you have, about how you want to fight back, how you want to protect what's yours – that isn't an evil inside of you. That's something all of us struggle with. Even the Professor, sometimes.”

He whimpers a little, and she softens her grip, afraid to try and force her view on him after what he said.

“I don't want to change the way you are. I don't have any right. But sometimes you might change by circumstance. That's what happened to me. I just know you haven't done anything worthy of all this inner torment yet.”

“What about that day in Cairo the Angel crashed in the jet, after I got everybody else out?”

“Well, that's not murder, Kurt. That's one of the best things you've ever done. That anyone's ever done.”

He just looks horrified at her saying _murder_ in here. “Ssssh, shhh.”

“Believe me, it would have been a lot worse if you'd failed to act because you were paralysed, too scared of it being a sin.” Many years ago, there was her Angel. Angel Salvadore. And Sean, Sean was much too young. There was Azazel, who she'd thought might be immortal, before.

The product of their union stares at her, blinking. She thinks perhaps it's just a fundamental difference between them, that she can't bridge because she didn't form him. She knows they must have had similar experiences, had hate and prejudice directed at them, yet somehow he fears turning into _her_ , even fears the desire to become more like her.

She gives up. “If you're sleeping here another night, you can have my jacket. Must get cold up there, huh?”

He shakes his head. “It's all right. I'll – I'll come back with you.”

Well. Okay. Maybe they have made some progress, here, after all, progress she can't see. If he's decided he can still exist under her influence, who is she to deny him?

“Gut. Ich werde nicht immer kommen und holen Sie, wissen sie?”

“Ich weiss, Mutter.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried my best with the German again, it was probably horrible still this is what was meant, 
> 
> Du bist die erwachsene - you're the adult  
> die Beichte, es ist Heilig, geheim - Confession is sacred/ private  
> Bitte nur - please just...  
> Ich werde nicht immer kommen und holen Sie, wissen sie - I won't always come and get you, you know  
> Ich wiess, Mutter - I know mother

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Tegan and Sara, 'Redbelt'. I love this song for Kurt and how Raven feels about him.


End file.
